Title: And Your SoulPairing: Bellatrix/VoldemortPrompt: "In medieval times, dark witches were said to make love to the devil. Old myths do have some truth" at the hp_creatures Halloween festRating: RWord Count: 2 300Summary: Bellatrix wishes to give herself to the Dark Lord – to give whatever part of herself he desires.Author's Notes: Oh my gosh, everyone who followed the fest, was it not TOTALLY DIFFICULT to tell that this was mine?

)O(

Bellatrix had spent hours in preparation for her meeting with the Dark Lord. It was so dreadfully important to her that everything about her appearance, her dress, her demeanour and her state of mind be absolutely right so that when he looked upon her, he would see a woman that was as close to perfection as anyone could be.

She didn't even look at Rodolphus when she swept downstairs to leave. Her husband had complained that she took more interest in the Dark Lord than she did in him, which she thought to be a ludicrously obvious statement. She saw him from the corner of her eye, giving her a resentful – or even jealous, perhaps – glare, but she paid him no mind.

How could she even think of her husband when she was to finally have a private audience with the man who she had admired since the age of ten? How could she think of whether Rodolphus approved or not when she was – if all went well – going to receive her Mark and prove to the world that she would serve the Dark Lord?

"You look beautiful," Rodolphus called out grudgingly just before she stepped outside, and a faint blush swept her cheeks. She didlook beautiful and she only hoped that the Dark Lord would be of the same opinion.

Not that her appearance mattered. She wanted to be a servant to him, a member of his army, and what she looked like should make no difference to that…

Oh, but it would have been a lie if she had tried to tell herself that. She could say that she only desired to serve the Dark Lord, but it was obvious – to herself and, she was sure, to Rodolphus as well – that she wished to serve him in a far more intimate way than an average Death Eater would have been permitted to.

Her heart fluttered and she touched her breast, breathing rapidly and feeling her chest heave.

She had to compose herself. She could not let the Dark Lord know of the desires and passions and thoughts that filled her mind whenever she thought of him…

Calm yourself, Bellatrix.

She glanced at her reflection in the window of her manor, brushing her hair into place and then changing her mind and sweeping a dark curl back over her forehead. She curled her lips into a small and slightly seductive smile, then took one more deep breath to steady herself properly and Disapparated.

The Dark Lord's home was modest in comparison to the opulent manor that she and Rodolphus inhabited – modest, even, in comparison to the rather smaller houses that the Blacks and Lestranges owned, scattered over England – but Bellatrix found it imposing in its own way. It was just a small little building, tucked into a Muggle street (for safety, the Dark Lord had said. The Muggles notice nothing and the Ministry does not know that we are here), thick with years of grime and creeping vines on the outside. Bellatrix could not help but grimace as she lifted the rusty door-knocker and knocked once, twice, thrice against the door.

There was a long silence and she held her breath. If the Dark Lord had forgotten their appointment or decided that Bellatrix was of no worth to him after all, what would she do? Would she go back to the manor with her head bowed and face red and let Rodolphus scorn her for not being able to speak to him? Would she have to tell the Death Eaters to whom she had boasted that the Dark Lord was seeing her privately that he had not been to their meeting?

She would have died of shame…

Bellatrix hesitated at the door and was near ready to turn back and leave, sickened with shame, when it swung open.

"My Lord?"

There was no reply and Bellatrix reached into the pocket of her dress to wrap her hand around her wand. Perhaps this was a test. Perhaps the Dark Lord had arranged for her to be greeted with a test to be sure that she could serve him.

"My Lord…" she called again, a little more softly and nervously this time. "My Lord, we were to have a meeting…"

"Upstairs."

She jumped a little at his voice – it didn't sound like it came from upstairs, but from all around her. It was cold, emotionless and dripping with power, and a light flush rose on her cheeks.

"Yes, my Lord," Bellatrix whispered. She doubted that he could even hear her voice, for she dared only speak very quietly, and she hurried up the stairs, clutching her skirts and hoping that her face did not feel as flushed with emotion as she thought that it did.

"My Lord?" she called again when she reached the second storey and a door at the end of the short corridor swung open. Her heart was in her mouth and it was all she could do not to swoon on the spot as she stepped towards it.

His bedchamber – she could only assume that it was his bedchamber – was even more sparsely furnished than the state of his house would have led her to believe. There was a battered desk against one wall and ragged black curtains on the windows and the only light came from a small gas lamp in one corner. The only proper furniture – and the only item that Bellatrix thought befit a man of the Dark Lord's stature – was a large bed against the wall opposite the desk. It was dressed in deep red silk sheets that she thought probably cost more than the rest of the house.

Her eyes were drawn to the bed and she tried hard to look away from it, to keep away impure thoughts of what she would like for him to do to her on that bed.

"You wished to see me, Bellatrix?" he said, still not turning away from the window to look at her.

"I- I did, my Lord…" Her voice was shaking terribly, she knew, and how humiliating it was to know that the Dark Lord could tell how he was unsettling her. "I- I have been in your… your casual service for a long time now…"

"So you have," he said simply, calmly.

"I would wish…" It was so difficult to breathe. There was something about the bedroom, about the Dark Lord's presence, that put her in such a dreadfully nervous state…

"You would wish?"

"I wish to take the Dark Mark," she managed. "I wish to devote myself- my life- to you."

That made him turn around.

Perhaps it was a trick of the gaslight, or simply her imagination making her see eerie things where there were none, but his eyes seemed to glow crimson as he looked upon her.

"Do you?" he asked. He sounded intrigued and she hoped that it was not a mocking sort of curiosity.

"I do," she said quietly. "I- I would live to serve you, my Lord." Then, perhaps rather daringly, she added, "I would gladly give myself to you in whatever ways you should desire."

"You are forward, Bellatrix."

"Is that problematic?"

"Not terribly so," he said, and this time, she thought that she was hearing amusement in his tone, but it was a terribly sinister sort of sound. She swallowed.

"You have already proven yourself a… serviceable Death Eater," he continued, sounding rather meditative. "You have done work for me that has been helpful… you have shown yourself capable of what is required of any young person entering the ranks…"

"So I may be a Death Eater then, my Lord?" she asked breathlessly, eyes wide and imploring.

"That was never the question that you wanted an answer to." The way that he was looking at her was unsettling – as though he could see right into the very depths of her soul.

Perhaps he could – she knew him to be skilled at Legilimency. "You knew that I would accept you as a Death Eater. You have been told so much that taking the Mark is scarcely more than a formality now…"

He was drawing closer to her now and his proximity brought an ache to Bellatrix's belly and breast. She desired him so desperately – no, mustn't think that, he mustn't know – but he might already…

"You wished to know whether I desired more from you than the duties of a Death Eater."

"I- I don't know what you mean," she said, but her cheeks must have been crimson.

"You do not desire a Master. You are here because you want a lover – because you expect a lover."

Humiliating.

Bellatrix lowered her gaze to the ground, not daring to look up and meet his eyes. She saw no point in answering – he clearly already knew what thoughts had been in her mind and she didn't see any reason to deny them, nor did she expect that he would believe her if she tried to.

"Oh, do not dwell in your shame, Bellatrix." His voice was thick with scorn and sarcasm. "There is no reason to be humiliated over this – after all, you are only human in your desires…"

And you are not. You are more than human. You are not plagued by such base and uncomfortable lusts…

"Undress."

The way in which he said it was so matter-of-fact that Bellatrix thought that she had misheard him. Surely the Dark Lord had not just told her to undress – surely, he had said something else and her mind, clouded with desires, had twisted it into what she wanted to hear…

"Undress."

"My Lord?"

"It was what you desired, was it not?" he asked, a touch impatiently. "You wished for me to take you? If you did, then why are you just standing there?"

"I… I…" Bellatrix was quite sure that she had forgotten how to speak. She blinked at him, wondering if he was toying with her.

"If you are always going to take this long to respond to my orders, perhaps you would be a poor Death Eater," he sneered. "I did not think it was such a terribly complicated order, but…"

Bellatrix shook her head quickly and scrabbled at her clothing. "No- no, it wasn't, my Lord- I'm- I'm sorry." She pulled at the laces that fastened the back and her dress slipped down, pooling around her feet. She felt dreadfully exposed and shivered a little, but resisted the urge to cover herself.

"Lie down," he told her and she hurried to comply, sinking down onto the crimson sheets – so red, like blood – and looking up at him fearfully. He looked so powerful, so much more powerful than she…

And then he was on top of her.

He pinned her arms down to the bed and his lips pressed against the side of her throat. His hands on her wrists felt ice-cold but his mouth was hot and burned her and she automatically flinched away.

But oh, she couldn't have pushed him away if she had wanted to.

It was as if he had cast a spell upon her in the few seconds between when she had undressed and when he had joined her on the bed. Before, she had been afraid – at least, a little afraid, a little nervous, if excited at the prospect of being taken by a man who she had desired for so long – but now, it felt right to be so compliant, sowilling…

His teeth grazed her throat – they felt sharper than they should have, sharp enough to cut, but they didn't hurt – and she let out a soft sigh of pleasure and lust. Her body arched off the bed against his.

She was barely aware of what was happening to her body – she knew that he was pressing against her, that he was inside her and she knew that she was enjoying it, but all of that was secondary to something that she was feeling somewhere deep in her heart…An ache in her soul, perhaps, was how she would have described it, if she had been in any state to describe anything.

A moan tore itself from her throat and it was like hearing someone else. Her body trembled, but instead of feeling the sensations she usually associated with an orgasm, instead of a wave of heat and pleasure washing over her, the ache in her heart seemed to spread until she was paralyzed by it. For what felt like a dreadfully long time, she could not move, suspended in a strange and not entirely unpleasant frozen state, and then a flash of sharp and sudden pain went through her, her body clenched, and then her mind was perfectly, gloriously clear.

The Dark Lord lay at her side, wand in hand, looking at her with an expression of some pleasure. She shifted a little and felt sticky liquid between her thighs.

She had pleased him, then.

"My Lord, I–" she began, but he raised a finger to silence her, then lifted her arm.The Dark Mark was emblazoned upon her flesh, jet-black on her irritated, red skin, and smarting still.

"Oh… my Lord…"

"Does it please you, Bellatrix?" he asked. His lip curled slightly. "Does it please you to have given yourself to me?"

"Yes, my Lord," she said immediately, gazing at him. So close to him, she was sure that his eyes were burning scarlet, but dared not say so. "I- I am yours… my body… my mind…"

"And your soul," he finished. He touched her throat lightly and Bellatrix could have sworn that his hand felt even colder now than before.

A chill ran down her spine.

"Yes, my Lord," she whispered. "And my soul, if that is what you wish from me."

)O(

Fin

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